Games played with a racquet or paddle and a ball run the gamut, and can be played across a net or against a wall. These games include tennis, squash, racquet ball, paddle ball and ping pong. Tennis has perhaps the widest appeal of all of these games. It is played professionally and can be followed in person in large sports stadiums, on TV, and in print. Tennis can be played at many levels of skill and speed, and people in almost all age groups and physical condition play tennis for different reasons competitively, recreationally, and/or socially.
Because of the size and composition of a tennis ball, the velocity at which it can be hit, and the size of a tennis court, volleys tend to be short and, in many cases, frustrating. For many players, tennis would be more fun if the pace could be maintained at many levels of play, or even increased, for example, if volleys can be sustained longer without so slowing down ball movement and/or action as to unduly detract from game play.
While there are a number of other recreational games that use racquets and paddles and a net, or that may be played similar to tennis but less rigorously and/or more slowly (i.e., slower ball speed and player movement), they correspondingly do not provide the game play of tennis. Some of these games are played with a foam or wiffle ball. Examples of such games and of foam and wiffle balls are described in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,072,947 (Blue); 4,457,513 (Thompson); 3,671,040 (Meyer et al.); 2,743,931 (Pooley et al.); 3,069,170 (Dillon); 4,772,019 and 4,462,589 (Morgan); 4,463,951 (Kumasaka); 4,538,818 (Sinclair); and 5,123,659 (Williams). None of these references describes or suggests a game played similarly to tennis with a foam ball and a particular racquet under conditions that surprisingly maintain, or increase play activity to provide a high tennis game play value.